I often shop for groceries on Sundays. That has not always been the case. But these days, it is. Sometimes I have one child with me. Sometimes I have two. Sometimes, increasingly, I have none. Today, I had one.
As we finished up our shopping, and got in line to check out, I noticed the woman in front of me. I was in the process of emptying the back of the cart, unloading all of the items that I'd stacked around the little one (who refuses to sit in the front of the cart).
I glanced up to see a beautiful boquet of sunflowers laid crossways in the front of her cart. And then I took in the rest of her items on the belt in front of me... six bottles of wine, four red, two white. A large bundle of asparagus. Several small packages wrapped in brown paper, carefully taped by the worker at the meat counter or the seafood counter. Two packs of unsalted butter.
There were other things, things I didn't consciously itemize as I took in the gist of her small, compact, exquisite shopping order. Longingly, I glanced at her sunflowers.
Her items... so clearly a hallmark of a point in life. A simple shop. A few items. Everything fresh. And the luxury of the flowers... the whimsy of them, the quiet insistence on something beautiful just because.
In contrast, I looked at my own mounting pile on the belt behind her. 6 half-gallons of milk, 15 Lean Cuisine Pizzas, bagels, English muffins, cheese sticks, yogurts, apples, strawberries, chicken nuggets, orange juice... everything in bulk.
As I waited behind her, I looked again at the bouquet of sunflowers lying there in the cart, a token of a certain moment in life... for some a moment "before," for some a moment "after."
Definitely not the moment I'm "in."
At the same time... definitely a moment of startling awareness.
Interesting observation, Amy. I worked for a time at our local Wal-Mart, and it amazed (and entertained) me to see how much I could tell about a family simply by looking at what they purchased. To everthing there is a season, right?
So funny and I totally know what you mean. Camden refuses to sit in the front of the cart too... and people often look at me like I'm not being "safe" ... but whatever keeps them content, right?! And the flowers... yes, such a simple thing but a very big point you've made here... and I completely UNDERSTAND!
I smell a little mothering burnout, Amy. There were times when I had to chant 'this too shall pass' in many situations. There can be a feeling of being trapped in mothering burnout, and it's hard. Have you read the book 'Motherhood Stress'? It's brilliant. A mother took all the concepts of what causes workplace stress and applied them to the job of motherhood. It was very interesting because it made mothering seem more like a 'real' thing by placing it in a context of modern workplace words and concepts.
It's neat, though, that you noticed that moment. Almost as though you froze the world and saw you both as set directors for two movies.